Intentionally cause drama / TUES 3-3-26 / Genre for wannabe sleuths / Garam ___ (South Asian spice blend) / "Come to our rescue!" / Leaves shocked

Hi, everyone, it’s Clare here for the first Tuesday of March — surprise! Hope everyone is staying warm and hasn’t been too affected by the crazy winter. DC didn’t get hit too badly in the recent storm, and the snow thankfully melted pretty quickly (so I was able to bike again). Then it got warm enough last Saturday for a picnic — and now it’s supposed to be almost 80 this weekend. Wild. I’ve been missing having the Olympics to watch, but I’ve been rooting on my Liverpool (which is doing a bit better lately), watching the Unrivaled playoffs and cheering on the Penguins (minus Sidney Crosby because of the evil Czech player who hurt him). 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Drew Schmenner

Relative difficulty: On the easy side for a Tuesday

THEME: FIRST THINGS FIRST — In order, things you supposedly do first thing in the morning after waking up

Theme answers:

• STIR THE POT (18A: Intentionally cause drama) 
• GET UP TO SPEED (26A: Learn all the latest info) 
• STRETCH LIMOS (47A: Promgoers' luxurious rides) 
• SHOWER GIFT (60A: Present for an expectant mom or bride-to-be)

Word of the Day: SHERA (17A: He-Man's superheroine twin sister) —

Adora, known by her alter ego She-Ra, is a superheroine in the Masters of the Universe franchise. She is introduced as the protagonist of the 1985 Filmation series She-Ra: Princess of Power, which reveals her to be the long lost twin sister of He-Man. She-Ra again appears in the 2018 reboot She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.A series of toys under her name was produced by Mattel in 1984. She has also appeared in a number of Masters of the Universe comic books, most notably in DC Comics' 2012–2018 MOTU comic series, a roughly 1,000 page single story arc, collected in the 2019 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Omnibus hardcover release… She-Ra is known for her incredible feats and charisma. She has been shown multiple times to be able to lift not only full-grown men and robots, but also mountain-like rocks and buildings. She is depicted as being extremely fast and acrobatic. Her speed allows her to easily deflect multiple incoming energy blasts with her sword. (Wiki)

• • •

So, that puzzle is… fine? I’m really tired so I liked that it was a bit easier than Tuesdays often are, but it felt bland to the point that I don’t really know how to describe it. FIRST THINGS FIRST, I didn’t love the theme. The revealer says to look at the starts of the theme answers, so after finishing the puzzle I looked at STIR (18A), then tried to make it mesh with GET (26A). Hmm… STIR and GET, related to FIRST THINGS FIRST? It took me a bit to recognize GET UP as the “start” of the second theme answer. To be fair, the revealer only says it’s hinting to the “starts” of the answers. But to have three of them be one word and the fourth be two feels wrong. 

Besides, the actions in the theme answers aren’t what I would guess the average person does once they first wake up (or maybe people are better than me and actually do stretch or do yoga or something like I’ve been saying I’ll try to do for years). I realize that any such list of actions wouldn’t fit everybody, but this list didn’t quite sit right with me. I did, though, like the phrases for the first two answers — STIR THE POT (18A) and GET UP TO SPEED (26A). 

Other than that, the puzzle just felt full of short-ish, common words. I thought the most interesting and fun answers were MUTATING (9D: Changing genetically) and CHIRP (11D: Cricket's call) and TWEETS (68A: Sounds from baby robins). HUSHES UP (39D: Keeps from being publicly known) was also decent. LIESL (33D: Eldest von Trapp daughter in "The Sound of Music") is a great and uncommon name for a puzzle. And the clue for LOO (8D: Where to go in the U.K.?) is decently cute. But, EST (35D: Winter setting in D.C.) next to ETS (36D: Sci-fi space travelers)? AIRS (4D: Broadcasts)? RETIE (12D: Knot again)? OREO (58A: Black bits in cookies and cream)? MOW (52D: Cut the grass)? ELECT (50D: Vote into office)? Where were the interesting, long downs? The clever clues even if the answers were routine? 

It also felt like the constructor was trying a bit to be ~hip~ and ~with the times~ with words and phrases like SLAPS (31A: Is awesome, in slang), NORMIE (65A: Person with mainstream likes, pejoratively), AMIRITE (23A: "Don't you agree with me?," informally), and SPITS BARS (3D: Raps freestyle, in slang). Those are fine, and I personally like when the puzzle sometimes skews younger. But it mostly feels like this meme to me:

The puzzle may have been on the easy side because there were only around eight proper nouns, which feels like less than normal, and they certainly weren’t hard, with the possible exception of SHE-RA (17A).  

And that's about all I can think to say…

Misc.:

• The puzzle was clearly wrong about morning routines, because doesn’t everyone wake up to their puppy stealing their pillow at 6 AM, then almost falling off the bed and hitting their head on the bedside table? Or is that just me? But she’s so cute and just wants to cuddle, so I can’t stay mad for long. Until tomorrow, when she maybe successfully shoves me off the bed. 
• D.C. got a callout in 35D with EST. But I can’t wait until we’re in EDT in just a week! Losing an hour of sleep is so, so worth its being lighter later. That means more time for another picnic this weekend! 
• You’re really going to clue IAN (22A) McKellen as Magneto and not Gandalf?! That feels sacrilegious. I mean, I enjoyed some of the X-Men movies, but Lord of the Rings is the best of all time. 
• I remembered the name LIESL (33D) because of the iconic “Sixteen Going On Seventeen” song in “The Sound of Music.” I watched that movie a lot growing up. Just earlier today I was thinking of “snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes” from the song “My Favorite Things,” as the pretty snowflakes were coming down. 
• This may be a reach, but OGRE (​​58D: Shrek, e.g.) obviously makes me think of one line from this promo sketch that SNL did for Connor Storrie hosting this past Saturday. Everyone must watch. I’ve been rather obsessed with “Heated Rivalry” (and the stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams) ever since it aired, so I watched SNL all the way through for the first time in many years. 
• February was another good reading month for me. I’ve moved on a bit from my literary fiction horror phase and have now entered my romance phase. Though I’m currently in the middle of the audiobook for “Carl's Doomsday Scenario,” the second in a series. The narrator is absolutely fantastic and does so many incredible voices. It makes biking in the snow and being cold a little less miserable (yes, I did that today; and, yes, I still feel cold hours later).

And with that, I hope everyone has a great month of March!

Signed, Clare Carroll, last thing last

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Obsessor over "the precious" in Tolkien lore / MON 3-2-26 / Wild canid of the Great Lakes region / Sequence of steps to accomplish a goal / Year on the Yucatán / Sci-fi series with a "Time Lord" traveling in a TARDIS

Constructor: Leslie Benson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: GIVE A SHOUT OUT (36A: Acknowledge during a broadcast say ... and a hint to the shaded squares) — theme answers start with terms that might be shouted out:

Theme answers:

• FORESHADOW (shouted by a golfer) (17A: Hint at, as what's to come)
• STRIKE GOLD (... by an umpire) (25A: Hit the jackpot, so to speak)
• ACTION PLAN (... by a director) (48A: Sequence of steps to accomplish a goal)
• TIMBER WOLF (... by a logger) (58A: Wild canid of the Great Lakes region)

Word of the Day: TIMBER WOLF (58A) —

[buddy!]

The eastern wolf (Canis lycaon or Canis lupus lycaon), also known as the timber wolf, Algonquin wolf and eastern timber wolf, is a canine of debated taxonomy native to the Great Lakes region and southeastern Canada. It is considered either a unique subspecies of gray wolf, or red wolf, or a separate species from both. Many studies have found the eastern wolf to be the product of ancient and recent genetic admixture between the gray wolf and the coyote, while other studies have found some or all populations of the eastern wolf, as well as coyotes, originally separated from a common ancestor with the wolf over 1 million years ago and that these populations of the eastern wolf may be the same species as or a closely related species to the red wolf (Canis lupus rufus or Canis rufus) of the Southeastern United States. Regardless of its status, it is regarded as unique and therefore worthy of conservation with Canada citing the population in eastern Canada (also known as the "Algonquin wolf") as being the eastern wolf population subject to protection. // There are two forms, the larger being referred to as the Great Lakes-boreal wolf, which is generally found in Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, southeastern Manitoba and northern Ontario, and the smaller being the Algonquin wolf, which inhabits eastern Canada, specifically central and eastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec, with some overlapping and mixing of the two types in the southern portions of northeastern and northwestern Ontario. The eastern wolf's morphology is midway between that of the gray wolf and the coyote. The fur is typically of a grizzled grayish-brown color mixed with cinnamon. The nape, shoulder and tail region are a mix of black and gray, with the flanks and chest being rufous or creamy. It primarily preys on white-tailed deer, but may occasionally hunt moose and beavers.

• • •

The shaded squares are a weird choice. This is an absolutely ordinary first-words (or word parts) type theme. Usually (almost always, as far as I can remember) those first parts are not shaded. Usually the theme clues will be starred and the revealer clue will say something like "... or a hint to the starts of the answers to the starred clues." And then the theme answers themselves will just look ordinary, unshaded. You have to find the words / word parts yourself. No shaded squares unnecessarily telling you "look here!" I don't know why you'd need to also shade those first words / word parts. Why the additional, make-it-super-obvious indication? It's not like the words are hidden or embedded in their answers or anything. Seems absurd. Superfluous. As for the core concept today, it seems a little tepid. These are words that different people shout, sure, but GIVE A SHOUT OUT feels like way too ornate a phrase for a merely shouted word. The "OUT" part was briefly confusing, as I assumed something would be taken "out" of the answers, somehow. The FORE in FORESHADOW is an anomaly, since it's not a separate word like the others. ACTION PLAN is an inherently weak phrase—I've heard of it before, but every time I hear it, I think "so ... just a plan, then?" The phrase "plan of action" somehow rings truer than ACTION PLAN. I wanted a (much) better ACTION answer, is what I'm saying. ACTION FIGURE, something like that. I like that the shaded squares are all shouted words, all shouted in different contexts. There's something kind of fun about shouting these terms in my head to prove the veracity of the theme. But the overall execution just feels a little underwhelming. 

And the fill isn't helping. Audibly groaned at APRS (some things should never be pluralized and this is one of them) (22A: Figs. that include interest), and then again at AREAR (55A: Toward the back), which appears in the NYTXW way way more often than it should, which is never. Hadn't appeared in more than four years before today (good job, everybody!) but there have now been 21 appearances in the Modern Era (bad job, everybody!). ACUTER is a painful comparative adjective. I like this comment from a word reference forum I just found: "The British National Corpus offers ninety-four examples of more acute, and zero of acuter, so it looks like it's unanimous. Don't believe everything you read in dictionaries." AS BAD is AS BAD a partial as you're likely to see (OK, not the worst, but not great) (34A: "There's no such thing ___ publicity"). Then there's the lowest form of fill, the playground retort ("I AM SO!"), and the "anus" passing as "year" (ANO) (8D: Year on the Yucatán). At least they spelled DOCTOR WHO correctly (35D: Sci-fi series with a "Time Lord" traveling in a TARDIS). None of this DR. WHO shenanigans the NYTXW sometimes tries to get away with (nine appearances since '06).

The weirdest answer of the day was definitely SMEAGOL (29D: Obsessor over "the precious" in Tolkien lore). We just had SMEAGOL in the puzzle two days ago (causing no end of spelling trouble for solvers, myself included). And before today, SMEAGOL had only ever been a Friday or Saturday answer. And suddenly it jumps up the easiness scale all the way to Monday? Strange. There have been four SMEAGOL appearances total—two very close to each other in late 2018, then over seven years of silence, and then two more appearances within two days of each other. Congrats to all the solvers who got burned by SMEAGOL on Saturday but then got him today. I think we've had enough, though, now. Back into the volcano with you, Gollum (that's what SMEAGOL is renamed after he becomes corrupted by the One Ring).

Bullets:

• 6D: Bias (SLANT) — in the top half of the puzzle, this clue gave me the most trouble, solving Downs-only. I couldn't think of a synonym for "Bias" besides "prejudice" or maybe "leaning." Just drew a blank. This is not uncommon when solving Downs-only, but what compounded the problem was that I had SEI-E in one of the crosses and the only letter I could think of to go in the blank was "Z." So I put "Z" in and tried to think of synonyms for "Bias" that fit the --AZ- pattern. No luck. Wasn't til later, when I was able to get the final "T" (from STRIKE GOLD) that I realized, with a big "oh, duh," that SEINE was also a viable option there. Nothing else about the Downs-only solve gave me nearly so much trouble. But only because I was dead-certain about SMEAGOL and how to spell it (having seen it just two days ago). If I'd solved this puzzle last Monday, I think SMEAGOL might've held me up at least a little.
• 4D: Knight captures bishop, e.g. (CHESS MOVE) — wasn't sure how I felt about this answer at first but now I think it's probably the most interesting thing in the grid. I suppose at first it seemed a little ... wobbly, somehow. I had this "is that a strong enough standalone phrase? I ... think so?"And now I just think so. No "question mark?" about it.
• 14A: The Potato State (IDAHO) — pfffffft, IDAHO is the Gem State. Their license plates read "Famous Potatoes." My family is from IDAHO so I'm well aware of the state's association with potatoes, and I got this answer easily, but I don't think I've ever heard IDAHO called The Potato State. This is certainly the first time it's been clued this way. It's been clued [Potato state] a few times, with a lowercase "s" on "state," but that's not a title. Wikipedia has The Potato State listed as an unofficial title, so the clue is not wrong. Unofficial, but not wrong. Side note: the state motto of IDAHO is "ESTO Perpetua." This occasionally (seldom, but occasionally) has crossword relevance.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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